Mrs. Merriwether's Musical Cat

Written
by Carol Purdy  Illustrated by Petra Mathers

Reviewed by Aisha H. (age 8) and Melissa K. (age 8)

Mrs. Merriwether was an ordinary lady who played the piano and taught students how to play the piano. When she was playing the piano a cat jumped into the house and began to wave it's tail side by side keeping beat with the music. Mrs. Merriwether named the cat Beethoven. Over the next week, her student's music became better because Beethoven's tail was keeping the beat of the music. Then Peachtree Lane was no longer ordinary. Even her neighbor came over and handed her a bouquet of roses and thanked her for the beautiful music. Since her music was beautiful, she bought a wild red dress and put her ordinary brown dress in the closet. Then one day . . . Beethoven did not come. When Beethoven didn't come, the student's piano playing was worse. Mr. Crump, her neighbor called the police because of the noise. Mrs. Merriwether was upset and worried. She even went back to wearing her ordinary brown dress. Will Beethoven come back? Will Mrs. Merriwether and her students play great again? If you want to know what happened to Beethoven and Mrs. Merriwether you have to read this book.

When we first read the book and came to the part where Beethoven was missing, I(Melissa) was afraid Beethoven was hit by a car. I(Aisha) felt worried when Mrs. Merriwether got worried about Beethoven's disappearance.

I(Melissa) think this book is great because it has nice illustrations. It looks like the pictures are painted in watercolors. It reminds me of my brother's drawings. I (Aisha) like the book because I like cats.

We recommend this book to people who like cats. We also recommend this book to people who like playing the piano.